This is the second in a series where I peek into the lives of scientists. See part 1 here.

Jesse Miller collects field data to investigate how soil, habitat connectivity, and fire history influences plant communities in the Ozark Mountains. Image courtesy of Jesse Miller.

All scientists try – or should try – their best to adhere to the scientific method. They pose a curious and contemporarily-relevant question about how something works, usually with a general idea of what they expect to find; they cleverly design a way to go about testing this question; they put in some hard work to carry out an experiment; and they examine the results to see if a preconceived idea about the question makes any sense. Usually it doesn’t, and it’s back to step one. This seemingly ancient cyclical process is the foundation upon which scientists base their life’s work. Traditionally this work took place either out in the natural world or in the laboratory. As we expand our knowledge base in an era of rapid growth in many scientific fields, people are also pushing the boundaries of where science takes place (click here for an interesting example). As scientists are specialists in their subject field, they also become specialists in their research environment. I wondered which aspects of working in different research environments are similar, and which are different? And how does dealing with these common and unique challenges transfer to life outside of science?

To gather some insight, I interviewed a scientist working in each of four research environments: outdoors in the field, and indoors in the laboratory, the office, and the classroom.